Retelling Foster Carer’s Real Life Stories
The Fostering Network's annual awareness-raising event, Foster Care Fortnight™ is terrific because of the fantastic fostering stories that arise from it.
The event, which took place this year between 11-24 May, highlighted the incredible work that foster carers and key workers in the fostering sector do. The theme was, '#ThisIsFostering.'
Anchor staff and foster carers celebrated the occasion together, taking part in two fun but easy #FCF20 activities.
Foster carers shared photos of themselves and family members holding vibrant Foster Care Fortnight placards – the images showcased a beautiful depiction of foster carers real life stories.
Participants could also enter an exciting competition as part of the event by submitting a creative artwork. The requirement was to send in a photo or picture using an array of materials such as paint, plastic bricks, felt-tip pens and household objects to recreate the phrase "#ThisIsFostering".
Just like real life foster carer stories, the images entered were creative and diverse. To an extent, they reflected our current times; signs of the pandemic and lockdown could be subtly detected through the use of photographs taken by the participant's doorstep, or in the home.
Despite the challenges brought on by Covid-19, our carers and staff were able to organise and engage with Foster Care Fortnight activities en masse.
The competition had more than 20 entries, with Anchor Foster Care staff in our Kent, South London and East Sussex regions, and the Midlands and North of London areas entering additional photos to craft collaborative #ThisIsFostering collages.
Anchor Foster Care's Fostering Panel, who currently meet virtually (another marker of change during Covid), selected our 'creative photo' competition winner.
First prize, a £20 gift voucher, went to one of our lovely foster carers. Her brilliantly inspired spelling out of '#ThisIsFostering’ with alphabet spaghetti alongside a partial image of one of our young people captivated our panel team.
Norma, our Children and Young Person Support Worker, took our runner up prize of a £10 gift voucher for her imaginative and uplifting art piece. Norma said of her work;
"The reason I wanted to take part in the Foster Care Fortnight competition was for my love of creating something new especially as we were all in lockdown, and the opportunity to use all our tins of food accumulated during this time. In the process of making my design, I also thought about how lucky we were to be at home with a roof over our heads and food on the table. We have the opportunity to help children find small pleasures that we take for granted."
Despite the pandemic, Anchor has been able to maintain a ‘family feeling’ amongst foster carers and staff. However, we always need and would welcome more foster carers to join our family.
If you're thinking of fostering and joining our family, you could benefit from:
• Continuous learning and development through our top-quality, comprehensive training schedule. Courses include Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families (TCIF), looking after Children with Complex Health Needs and Paediatric First Aid.
• Help with solving problems in placements including help with finance, equipment, transport, and escort when carers are unable to drive.
• Promptly paid fostering allowances and fees with advice available on tax issues.
• Assistance in dealing with services including education, health and out of school activities (including liaising with schools and therapists).
• 24-hour telephone support available 365 days per year and
• Weekly support for your first six weeks as a foster carer and then monthly.
Please also visit the
Fostering Network website for more information and advice about fostering.
Being a foster carer at Anchor is all about being a part of a family, and real life foster carer's stories matter to us. Please help us to tell more real life foster carer stories when you join us today.
